You Know You're A Good Fanfic Author When
by InTheShadowOfSignificance
Summary: One night out of boredom Yugi and the gang make a list to seperate the good fanfiction authors from the bad. Included are all the do's, don'ts and tricks of the trade. The things listed have NO real bearing on where you stand as a writer.


You know you're a good fanfiction author when:

Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh

Warnings/Notes: Not meant to offend anyone, this was simply for fun.

Out of boredom one night Joey sat down at his computer and tossed his deck lazily to the side. Then, looking up at the sound of his IM, he read the message, it was an invitation to a conference going on between, Tristan, Yugi, Tea, and Ryou.

"Hey guys, what's up?" He quickly typed after joining the group, then, after pausing for a moment added, "Nothing's wrong, right?"

A few seconds later a display message showed up at the bottom of the window, it read, YugiM is typing a message. "No." The shortest of the gang replied, "We're making a list, wanna check it out?" He asked.

Joey sighed and laughed slightly, rubbing his hands together giddily before typing back, _aw man this is gonna be good! _He thought to himself as he hastily typed and entered his reply, saying each word aloud as he typed it, "Sure Yug, sounds awesome."

Sending an IM smile, each of the others began to hastily explain what the list was about. "You see." Ryou started off, "I was surfing the net a little while ago and came across this fanfiction site." He continued. At this, Joey interjected, and began to type, making many typos as he let his fingers get ahead of themselves unintentionally.

"I've been there before! Some of those crazy stories scare me man!" He replied.

Tea sent an emocon signaling her laughter, "You mean you can read them?" She eagerly typed.

Joey scowled at the computer screen, "Ha, ha Tea very funny." He put in before Tristan managed to type out lol.

"Anyway man." He typed before accidentally hitting and cursing his enter key, "Here it is." With that, the list fell before Joey, "It's way to tell you're a decent fanfic writer, cause not all of them are bad." He continued, Joey raised an eyebrow skeptically, but, without hesitation, began to read.

You know you're a good fanfiction author when:

1) You have twice as many story alerts as chapters

2) You are on at least 10 people's favorite author lists

3) You get at least 5 reviews per chapter and they tend to increase as the plot builds up

4) The number of words in the reviews for the chapter outweigh that of the chapter itself

5) People message you all the time telling you to update and threaten you with pointy objects if you don't do so soon

6) People quote your story so many times you get sick of reading their comments

7) People simultaneously yell at one of the villains in your story when reviewing

8) People tell you that you're the 'best writer for insert category here ever

9) People ask you to use parts of your fanfics in their own

10) Your stories make people cry

11) Your stories make people laugh obnoxiously loud and get them into trouble with their parents

12) Your stories are so well written that it makes the fan girls who review say more than just SETO-KUN!

13) The only critique you receive is on grammar and spelling

14) The only 'flames' you get are those stupid copy-paste ones from flame rising and co.

15) You can write romance in which the personalities you set for the characters don't randomly fall away for the sake of senseless fluff and smut

16) The characters resemble themselves enough that if you changed the names in the story you couldn't post it on fiction press and call it your own

17) Your OC's can pass for original characters and not Mary-Sue's (which means they're not a character that is whiny, bitchy, perfect, fangirlish, or conveniently cursed with a horrible past, life, and has no friends to speak of meaning that you should feel sorry for him/her)

18) You know enough to spell out the words, you, your, are, and was

19) You actually take the time to research the spelling of a character's name before you post your story.

20) Your story is well-written enough that readers who don't like a certain pairing you've included can tolerate or enjoy it22

21) You portray characters in a new and interesting way while keeping them in character

22) People ask to do a spin off of one of the stories or plots you've created

23) You can post an AU (Alternate Universe) story, which involves things such as adoption, high school etc that people tell you is worth reading. (Meaning you can keep characters as described in number 16)

24) You do at least a small amount of research when writing a story in which someone dies from a terminal illness (meaning you didn't just throw some random crap together and call it part of your story just for the sake of killing someone off.) Ex: A bug bit so-and-so in his sleep and he got a disease from it that killed him.

25) You can describe what happens in your story well enough that you don't have to put it into script format.

26) You can convey that a character is angry without having to constantly have what they're saying typed like this **I hate you, you stupid bastard! **Or this, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU! Or this: _**Sometimes I wish you'd just go die somewhere! **_Sometimes it's fine, but when your whole story is dialogue and half of it is either in bold faced print or caps lock it sort of makes it seem pointless and crack headed.

27) You can make a story in the humor category that doesn't strive off of random comedy central jokes and pop-culture references made by Little Koriboh (Even though he is awesome and I bow down to his greatness)

28) You can write a chapter in which the author's notes aren't longer than the actually story or prelude to the story you've come up with.

29) You can take a spin on a popular pairing that you know in the reality of that fandom would never happen and write it tastefully. (Though I admit I love senseless fluff because I'm just that much of a hopeless romantic) Joey laughed at the side note Tristan had added, which read, 'Tea couldn't resist adding that in.'

30) And finally, you know it is never, ever okay to plagiarize someone else's work and would never do so (unless of course, your life depended on it, because in this show, weird things like that happen a lot)

Joey laughed at the last statement, and without thinking, began to quote the ones on the list that were his favorite, before long, beginning to ramble about "random hobos" who dared to pair him with moneybags.

* * *

And this my friends is the end, sorry, no plot, just randomness.


End file.
